Look at What the Met Dragged In
by Atlin Merrick
Summary: "No offense Sherlock, but John and I are a lot more rough round the edges than you are. You'd have made a much prettier girl." Sherlock's long, painted fingers ran slowly up one long leg, tugging the wrinkles from his black hose. "True…"


**Look at What the Met Dragged In**

It's hard to shut up a Holmes.

"John, you and I? I'm afraid we'll never be pretty."

Gregory Lestrade watched John lean close to the mirror and touch up his coral lipstick. He nodded in approval. Most white blokes would have gone with a vibrant red, but frankly scarlet was just too harsh for Caucasian skin tones. Except Sherlock's of course. You had to be pale as milk glass to pull off a nice, rich vermillion and—

"Speak for yourself, Greg."

—and talk of the devil. Greg spun around on his cute little stool—the ladies' loo at this pricy hotel was like some sort of confusing mix between a cat house and a boardroom, Greg didn't know whether he felt powerful or like a pretty pet in a pampered harem—looked at Sherlock from head to toe.

Sitting on a plush green sofa, legs crossed at the ankle, a black leather skirt just barely covering his crotch, black hose causing long legs to go on forever, the consulting detective really did look rather fabulous with the crimson lip stain and subtle kohl ringing his eyes.

"John looks gorgeous."

Lestrade shook his head. At this point John and Sherlock had been married not even a month. They'd been together two years before that, sure, but still Greg wasn't quite used to this Sherlock. The one who actually said things like "John looks gorgeous."

Greg turned back, caught John's eye in the mirror, they grinned at each other. "No offense Sherlock, but John and I are a lot more rough round the edges than you are. You'd have made a much prettier girl."

Sherlock ran two hands slowly up one leg, tugging the wrinkles from his hose. The detectivey side of detective inspector Lestrade noticed John noticing this in the reflection of the mirror. "True. But then again, we're not exactly supposed to look precisely female, are we?"

After John finished primping his red mane, Greg plucked up the brush, tugged it through his bouncy ginger waves. He wasn't sure the color suited him as well as it did John, but it was this wig or a severe blond number that didn't work with his complexion _at all._ "No, I guess not."

Emphatically not. Insistently not. _Unambiguously_ not. What John, Sherlock, Greg, and one and a half dozen other detectives were supposed to look like were _The Men of the Met._ As in men, very emphatically, insistently, unambiguously male.

Dressed in drag. Of course.

At least half the men doing this claimed it was for the charity, just the charity—billionaire Bonnie Premmer was a generous philanthropist, yet well known for her eccentricity and the conditions she sometimes placed on her bequests—but the other half? Most wouldn't say it out loud, but every last one of them knew in his heart he was doing it because when decked out in the right gear he looked and felt fucking _fabulous._

Call it play acting, call it dress up, whatever you call it _it _was a riot and honestly Greg had no problem admitting it. Every little kid alive has tripped around the sitting room at least once in daddy's shoes and then mummy's pumps and both times felt tall and grown up and impossibly cool and maybe even pretty and Lestrade was no exception. Nor was John, Tim, Carlos, Andrew, Mark, Rashid, Stig, Stephen, and all the others.

Sherlock was probably the anomaly, no surprise there. Something about the ease with which he wore the sheer black hose, the stilettos, the tight skirt and strangely sexy but completely demure purple blouse left Greg certain that if Sherlock hadn't actually dressed in mum's complete cocktail ensemble many, many, _many_ times during his formative years then at least he'd had a good healthy run as a transvestite in a past life.

"Stop that, Sherlock."

Greg's gaze flicked over to John again, who was still staring hard at his husband via the gleaming mirror, then over to Sherlock. Hmmm. The curiously quiet detective _had_ been messing with his hosiery a hell of a long time, hadn't he?

First there'd been those long, painted fingers straightening out what didn't need straightening, then there'd been the aforementioned running of both hands up long legs—both of which had been shaved, mind you; Sherlock does not fuck around with his impersonations—and now Sherlock was simultaneously tugging at his skirt while he was, um, opening his legs.

"If you give me a hard-on while I'm wearing tight suede not only am I going to snap your bra strap, I'm going to die of embarrassment. So. Put your legs together love. And put that tongue in your mouth. And…and stop touching…stop touching…your…"

Greg watched the two men eye-sex the hell out of each other in the looking glass before remembering they were just back from their honeymoon—the details of which had already gone down in legend—which meant that they were probably still all hard and hot for each other, which meant that maybe Greg should toddle off on his pretty patent leather pumps and—

"Ah, Sherlock, there you are."

_Speaking of hot. Hello, handsome._

Greg didn't say that, of course. He said nothing much at all, just smiled up at the new arrival. And that was where the part about shutting up a Holmes came in.

Because it took less than one half second for Mycroft to take in the entire room at a glance and for the tall, suited man to forget the Extremely Important Thing he was about to say to his little brother. It took less than one half second for him to look down at Gregory Lestrade who he'd had _such _a lovely time talking with at John and Sherlock's wedding and who he'd since seen four times in random social situations John kept inviting him to—_oooooh!—_and less than half a second for Mycroft to open his mouth…and find nothing much coming from it.

Of course it wasn't confusion that hushed this Holmes. He'd recognized the detective inspector instantly. He'd known who was under the kohl and fake lashes, the ginger bob and leather jacket. He'd known the moment he'd seen Lestrade's ankles.

Yes, ankles. Mycroft knows the shape of Lestrade's ankles. So does Sherlock. And they both know the DI's got a trio of freckles on the back of his left wrist, a ring of darker brown around the edge of his irises, and a tendency to glance left just before he's about to make a joke. Noticing facts like this—about everyone—is what the Holmes brains _do._

Something else the Holmes brains do well is denial, apparently. And revelation, fortunately. Because like his brother before him, until this minute Mycroft would have told you he didn't have time for romance, sex, all the messy business of love and lust—even while he was lusting, daydreaming, and for the last long month very much _looking._

Yet, like the other little genius in the room, Mycroft also wasn't a complete idiot. When presented—in less than one second—with the evidence that he was attracted to someone so hard he couldn't speak, he accepted the obvious (within that one second; it had taken Sherlock an entire day. Again Mycroft is smarter than his brother, a taunt for another time), closed his mouth, opened it again and finally said softly, "Hello, Greg."

About then John did a discrete little victory lap around the ladies' loo, punched the air with both fists, and said, "Hell yes it took you long enough."

Except he kept it all inside. Instead John just glanced at the DI and his brother-in-law in the mirror and then touched up his mascara again.

…

The Met boys raised over a quarter million pounds that night.

Oh the whole event was really quite upper-crust and charming in a very archaic, sordid sort of way. But no one let themselves think too hard about the very creepy sexual overtones of the whole thing—except Bonnie Premmer—instead the detectives of the Yard—and two of their consultants—tried outdoing one another with struts and innuendo and very, very good makeup—enticing rich boys and rich girls to pay pretty sums for a two hour 'date' with them.

Every Met man was later proud to report he'd been more than equal to the task, not only meeting his base price—two thousand quid—but every last one at least doubling it. Yet, while they were all most emphatically equal, some were, let us say, more equal than others.

The initial bid for Sherlock quadrupled almost the moment he stepped on the stage, which surprised no one. Yet when the auctioneer heeded her inspiration and added John to the deal? The bidding reached forty thousand pounds in five minutes.

Somehow John wasn't surprised, but Sherlock? He was so stunned his pretty mouth hung open. After John kissed it closed—on stage—the gavel eventually slammed down on a rather fetching fifty three thousand quid.

Yet fifty thousand was just the nice little cake. The _icing_ on that cake came at the end when Gregory Lestrade stood on that stage, unconsciously licking his lips, flicking his gaze around the room, finally finding the light eyes—so like his brother's—he was looking for.

Greg would like to say he, like Sherlock, was surprised by the final bid but honestly he wasn't. And he wasn't surprised either that he wanted to, _needed _to, make sure that that lunch he was about to have with the British government? That it was worth at _least _one hundred thousand pounds. Oh, at the_ very _least.

_My first Mystrade! Sorta! It's a start! If you want to see what the boys look like (sorta) in my head, go back about a week in my Tumblr: atlinmerrick . tumblr. com._


End file.
